


Monologues and Mutuality

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Character Study, Christine POV, Christine and Michael are awkward kids, Fluff, Fluff With Emotions, Friendship, Gen, but they're figuring things out together, lots of musical theatre references, mild mostly unintentional bullying, who haven't ever had a lot of friends before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 18:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18288122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Christine has been known to talk too much. Not everybody is willing to listen to her theatrical rants and rambles, but Michael always seems to like them.





	Monologues and Mutuality

The first time Christine and Michael hang out one on one is during lunch on a Monday. Jeremy is taking a ‘mental health day’ at home, something he's needed quite a lot of lately. Michael rushes after Christine on the way to the school cafeteria. 

“The food here’s bogus,” he says. “Wanna go to sev-elev and grab something real?” 

Christine agrees. Usually she doesn't take advantage of the upperclassman privilege of going off campus for lunch. It's only a twenty-five minute break, and even walking out to the parking lot takes up time that she could use to read, or write up reviews of obscure musicals for her blog. Then again, she's not used to people asking her to go places or even sit at their table. These are all new developments since the Squip. 

“Come on!” Michael says, and Christine follows. 

Christine likes to watch people. She likes to make mental notes of their movements and tics, in case she ever gets cast in a play as a character similar to them. Michael walks as though he's listening to music, even when his headphones aren't on. He does this step-step-step-skip-step thing. Christine’s never met anybody else who does that. 

“If you like sushi,” Michael is saying, “a new place opened up just off the turnpike. Can't go now. No time. But we could go sometime. It's one of those places where the table is like one of those spinning luggage things at airports, but covered in sushi, and you just grab the ones you want to eat.” 

“I know those luggage things!” Christine says. “I always wanted to climb on them when I was a kid. I wanted to ride them into the little cave that the suitcases flew out of.” 

“Hard same.” 

“Really?” 

“Totally.” 

That puts a skip in Christine’s step as well. Michael understands her! Is there anything sweeter than the feeling of being understood? Fat chance! 

On the ride to Seven-Eleven, Michael tells Christine about an event in Fallout Five where there's a big in-game parade, and you can win masks for completing it. Christine tells Michael about the worst masks she's ever worn, and other costuming malfunctions. When they finally get to the store, Michael buys sushi and a slushie, and Christine grabs a chicken salad sandwich and ice tea. 

“How’d you get so into theatre and all that?” Michael asks, after they get back in the car. He unwraps his sushi, ready to devour it right then and there.

“When I was like five, one of my dads’ friends got the lead in a community theatre production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and I was just… y’know, I was _rapt_ with attention, so they bought me the cast recording, and I memorized the entire thing! I still can sing through it from beginning to end.” 

“Whoah.” 

 

Christine takes a bite of her own lunch, grinning as she chews. Michael sounds genuinely impressed. 

“Go on then,” Michael encourages. 

“What?” 

“Prove your hidden super power. Sing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat from start to finish.” 

“It's an hour and fifteen minutes long!” 

“I'll go back in and get more snacks.” 

“We have to get back to class.” 

“Oh. Right.” Michael seems to deflate a little. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “You wanna skip class?” he asks. 

“You’re kidding,” says Christine, even though she knows Michael is not. In over a decade of school, Christine has never skipped a single class, at least not without a doctor’s note. Then again, Michael does a lot of things that Christine has never dreamt of doing, massive amounts of pot being just one example, and yet he's so inherently _good_ that it never seems like getting in trouble coming from him. 

“It's probably a bad idea,” Michael says. “We’d better head back.” 

Christine bites her lip. Maybe her tendency to not get in trouble is just a symptom of never before having had someone worth getting in trouble with. Besides, if she does this, maybe she can start down the road of doing other things she's not supposed to do, like starting up an improv group in the school stairwell to protest the woeful incompleteness of Middleborough High School’s sex ed program. 

“You really want to hear me sing all of Joseph?” Christine asks. 

“Hell yeah.” 

Christine looks around the car, half expecting a teacher to jump out of the bushes and reprimand her. When nobody does, Christine takes a deep breath, opens her mouth, and begins to sing. 

———————

 

To say that theatre is Christine’s life would be hyperbolic. Christine is addicted to hyperboles. She's allowed to be. The day she told her dads she wanted to fling herself off a bridge because the Broadway production of Once on this Island was closing caused some problems, but only ‘cause of the scary phrasing. Exaggerating happiness is totally permissible. Christine can shout, without repercussions, that theatre is her life, her world, her heart, and her soul. She can wax poetic about how a day without theatre is like a day without sunshine, though not in a nuclear winter type of way. Making nuclear winter analogies would _definitely_ be crossing some lines that Christine wouldn't want to be misconstrued as crossing, so she's always careful to explain that nuclear winter isn't what she means. She's aware that the end of the world is a big deal, and that some people will always take her seriously if she talks about being depressed by the end of play rehearsal, unless she's very clear about why they don't have to worry. 

Not all of Christine’s friends are as up for letting her ramble about her theatre fixation as Michael is. Jeremy’s legit into it, so he's the best person to talk to about that kind of stuff, but Michael’s the second best, because he puts the most effort into showing interest. 

There's a morning when the entire squad is hanging in the hallway, waiting for first period to start, and Jake is reading George Takei’s Amazon reviews aloud, because he's just discovered them, and they’re hilarious. Christine is waiting for a lull in the conversation, because she too has some information about George Takei. 

Christine opens her mouth to speak, just as Jake finishes reading a particularly rousing account of George’s adventures with a sixty pound jar of lube. 

Jeremy beats her to it. 

 

“He was also in Star Trek,” he says. 

“He was also…” Christine begins. 

“Everybody knows that, genius,” Rich says, talking to Jeremy alone, like he hasn't even heard Christine. Though his tone is one of good-natured ribbing, Jeremy clamps his mouth shut, and straightens his posture uncomfortably. Rich catches it too, if the slight widening of his eyes is any indication. Rich smacks himself in the back of his neck. 

“I didn't know,” says Brooke, glancing up from her phone. “About Star Wars or whatever.” 

Nobody says anything for a moment, which gives Christine her chance! “George Takei was in a musical,” she says, as quickly as she can. “It was called Allegiance, and it was about…”

“We’re _not_ talking about musicals right now,” Chloe snaps. 

“Cool it,” says Michael. “It'd be a nice change from talking about industrial size buckets of lube.” 

Jenna waves her phone, a sure sign that she has information to share with everybody. “What I want to know is why nobody’s talking about how Madeline hooked up with Aubrey last night,” she says. “Even _I_ didn't see that one coming.” 

Christine doesn't speak another word for the rest of the conversation, but sits there with her fists clenched and her face fixed in a glare that nobody even bothers to notice. In truth, she's been trying to cut down on the theatre talk. Last week Jenna had jokingly started lunch by setting a timer and saying that Christine could have two minutes to ramble about whatever obscure shows she wanted and get it out of her system right at the start, so that they could all have a normal conversation for once. That'd been harsh, but not without an element of truth. This time, though, it doesn't make sense that Chloe cut Christine off like that. She'd been on topic and contributing to the conversation! It's not fair, and the fact that she and Chloe are supposedly friends now makes it even worse. Haters are predisposed to hate, but if Christine is annoying her _friends_ every time she opens her mouth, then something has to be wrong. 

Christine is supposed to go to the Goodwill in Long Island with Michael and Jeremy after school. Michael read on some kind of online forum that they just got in a massive amount of old VHS tapes, and he insists that's worth the hour and a half drive. Jeremy bails because he has a headache, so it's just Christine and Michael again. 

Michael can hardly sit still on the drive there. He's listing off all the old TV shows he's been dying to see, but can't find anywhere. 

“They’ve got Captain Planet,” he says. “Like eight episodes of it! And the Little Shop of Horrors Cartoon with the really ugly animation!” 

“Little Shop of Horrors! I—” Christine bites back her enthusiasm. Michael loves outdated cartoons. He doesn't love musicals. “You said the animation was bad?” 

“It's gloriously heinous. If I can actually find a hard copy it’ll probably be the best thing that's ever happened to me.” 

“If you don't find it, I'll ask my dads. They're really good at finding rare things. Last year, for my birthday, they got me a copy of the out of print original London cast of—” again, Christine stops herself before she goes too far. 

“The original London cast of…?” Michael encourages. 

“Children of Eden,” mumbles Christine. 

“Very cool. Hey, what about that George Takei musical you were talking about earlier?” 

“It's nothing. I mean, it wasn't that good. I mean… the story was very good and very important, but the lyrics were overly simplistic. It's not interesting at all. I only watched it like twelve times. It's just that it's about the Japanese internment camps in America and it's such an important and underrated piece of theatre, and it's a crime that it closed as early as it did.” 

Sometimes when Christine rambles, there's a distinct sensation when it's over that she's been yanked about by an unseen puppet master whose only goal is to make her movements and body language as frighteningly intense as possible. This time, it's been drawing her closer to Michael, and now she's got her hand on his knee, which is super weird. She lets go of Michael, and sinks back into her seat. “Allegiance is okay, I guess,” she says, forcibly calm, as she keeps her eyes fixed on the road in front of her. 

————-

The way that Michael relates to the musicals and plays Christine throws at him isn't always the way she expects him to, or the way that she expects anybody to for that matter. Sometimes she, Michael, and Jeremy have movie nights. This time it's Christine's turn to choose the movie, so she goes for Rent Live. 

Jeremy gives a little fist pump of excitement. Michael just smiles, ready to go along for the ride. 

“There are a lot of emotions on this one,” Christine says, as Michael gets the TV set up for streaming. “It needs to be watched as a period piece, but it's a classic.” 

“It's about the 90’s,” Jeremy adds. “You’ll love it.” 

Jeremy’s right. Michael totally digs the aesthetic of Rent. When they get to the New Years break in segment, and Maureen is calling Joanne on her clunky old cell phone, Michael is practically salivating. 

“Look at that thing,” he says, pointing to the phone. “Just _look_ at it. Feast your eyes on that beautiful piece of old ass technology. Can we rewind to watch that part again?” 

“I guess,” Christine says, confused. Jeremy is grinning kinda like he'd like to jump Michael, which is a look he gets a lot. 

“That is an amazing phone,” Michael says, as they watch the scene again. “I'd sell my soul for a phone like that.” 

They watch the scene three more times. From that day forward, Michael refers to Rent as “the phone musical”. 

—————— 

Occasionally, the way that Michael relates to musicals is exactly the way Christine wishes everybody would relate to them. 

Michael is driving Christine and Jeremy to the mall, and Christine’s got control of the radio. In instances like this, she always plays show tunes, but she does her best to pick out ones that will appeal to her companions. 

“The next one coming up is Telephone Wire from Fun Home,” Christine tells Michael. “It's about telephones! Your favorite thing! Old ones, with wires and everything.” 

Michael gives an appreciative hum. The song starts, and he doesn't say much. Christine keeps waiting for him to gush about old phones, but he doesn't. Has Christine chosen wrong? 

“That was mega powerful,” Michael says, as the last notes die out. “Sad, but mega powerful.” 

“I cried the first time I heard it,” Christine admits. “It's one of my favorites.” 

Michael nods. “I can see why. You’re gonna have to make me a playlist of your favorites, so I can listen to them more. I could use some more music.”


End file.
